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ASB has launched a new campaign via Saatchi & Saatchi to draw attention to its GetWise initiative, which has been created to educate kids on how to be smarter with money.

In the new 60-second spot called 'Creating cash-clever Kiwis', a series of adorable kids are depicted giving imaginative answers to questions about money. Then, once the kids have had their say, a narrator interjects saying that 'kids have some funny ideas about money' before prompting viewers to visit the GetWise section of the website.

Since 2010, when GetWise was first launched, ASB's programme facilitators have given basic financial literacy courses to hundreds of thousands of young Kiwis throughout the nation.

The programme is free of charge and available to either primary or intermediate schools, which can register their interest via the website. If selected, schools will then be visited by one of facilitators allocated to Auckland, Christchurch, Hamilton and Wellington.

The new campaign comes about a month after ASB announced ten-year-old Orewa North Primary school attendee Halle Tapatu as the 400,000th student to receive tuition from one of the appointed facilitators.

In a release on the milestone, the school's principal Bruce Laws said that the increasing digitisation of transactions made it more difficult for kids to recognise the origin or value money.

“Not long ago, kids thought money grew on trees because they saw the physical cash often but now it’s all in plastic, so it’s difficult for children to understand where money actually comes from," he says. “It’s hugely important to lay the foundations in the early stages of children’s lives and sets them up for when they are older. This is especially relevant given most parents are so busy in this day and also because there isn’t anything like this in the school curriculum.”

In an effort to further emphasise the importance of financial literacy among kids, ASB has launched a YouTube-hosted campaign that features a range of creative strategies parents can employ in their homes to educate kids on the value of money.

While ASB has been pushing the social value of the campaign in terms of the assistance it provides to kids, it is in many ways the equivalent of McDonald's hosting a sporting initiative in order to get its brand in front of kids. And when it comes to the banking industry, getting in early could mean winning a customer for a long time.

Generally, once Kiwis join a bank, they are likely to stay for it with a significant period of time due to the onerous task of switching. Not only do switching customers have to notify both banks of the change, they also have to bring it to the attention of their employers. And, in this time of automated direct debit payments, a change could also mean manually updating payment details on your mobile, broadband, mortgage (or rent) and electricity accounts.

And although the banking industry is often reviled by social commentators and conspiracy theorists, Kiwis have consistently said that they are happy with the level of service they receive from their banks.

A Curia Market Research poll conductedon behalf of the New Zealand Bankers' Association (NZBA) in March last year showed that 77 percent of the Kiwis questioned were either satisfied or very satisfied with their banks and that only nine percent were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied.

Winning younger customers also comes with an up-sell potential in the sense that many students will one day go to university—and this might necessitate a hefty student loan.

StopPress sent several questions to the ASB public relations team about the GetWise initiative, and we have been told a response will follow later today.

According to Nielson, 267,000 or 91 percent of Kiwis aged 15 to 19 have a bank account compared to 97 percent of all New Zealanders 15 and older.

And when these figures are broken down into the respective banks, the data shows that 1,286,000 or 37 percent of people 15 and older hold an ANZ bank account, while only 22 percent have an ASB account. The margin of difference was however smaller in the 15 to 19 age group, with ANZ having 84,000 clients (31 percent) and ASB placing second with 63,000 (24 percent).

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